Why #RIPTwitter Started Trending Over the Weekend

A timeline update enraged the platform's loyal users.

Ever since Twitter launched, tweets in our Twitter timelines have appeared in reverse chronological order. When you sign on to the service or open the app on your mobile phone, the tweets you see are the more recent ones posted. Doesn't matter if it's totally irrelevant to you, an annoying celeb promo, or a sports update from a news organization when you don't really know the difference between the Super Bowl or the All-Star Game. That's just the way tweets appear, and you've learned to accept it and navigate to your favorite tweeters. The latest rumored update from the social media site, however, could change that and people are not happy.

Buzzfeed News is reporting that Twitter is toying around with the idea of having tweets displayed by relevance, which will be powered by an algorithm as early as this week. No longer will you have to skim 100 posts to get to the one that's most likely to interest you, but the most exciting posts will now be delivered first in your feed, instead of when they were posted.

People are upset by this, however, because small brands and Twitter addicts who use the service to build their online reputations will have to work twice as hard to get your attention. It also means that discovering new and funny entities will be harder, since you'll mostly be shown what Twitter thinks you already like, will like, or what's popular and trending. This change would also take away from the "real-time" nature of the service, which made it so popular and groundbreaking in the first place.

But what made the service so alluring has also resulted in it being inundated with spam and noise, and as BuzzFeed reported in June, this could be a way for the company to "elevate popular content and... solve some of Twitter's signal-to-noise problems."

Apparently though, people like the noise and took to Twitter to voice their dissatisfaction with the hashtag #RIPTwitter.

Jack Dorsey, the company's CEO, has responded to his many angry users, and said, "RIPTwitter: I want you all to know we're always listening. We never planned to reorder timelines next week... Twitter is live. Twitter is real-time. Twitter is about who & what you follow. And Twitter is here to stay! By becoming more Twitter-y." He says the company has no plans to completely restructure your timeline.

The Verge, who saw the update, is reporting that the whole thing is a mix up and Twitter is actually just planning to expand its "while you were away" feature, and you'll be able to opt out entirely if you wish. The new update will display highlights from the day if you only open up the service now and then, but when you pull down to "refresh your stream, it's back to the regular, reverse-chronological timeline."

So take a deep breath, relax, and don't worry. The Twitter you've grown to love isn't going away anytime soon.